OT: Roscoe Smith Red Shirting

[GemParty]

For UNLV after waiver was denied. I really don't understand why he left to begin with. Even though he has no time/situation clue, I liked him. Never forget he makes a little jumper in our Magical Tourney Run, and as he's back pedaling, he shrugs his shoulders like "if they don't check me, I'm making that all night". Why Roscoe Why?

 

[uchusky32]

I like Roscoe. He played hard for us. To bad he thinks his game translates to playing the 3. I don't see how sitting out a year is better than playing under the tutelage of one of the greatest coaches of all time only missing the post season. If he left because of us missing the post season isn't he missing it and more? There must have been more to it. How about he told coach he wanted to play the 3 and coach said your skill set doesn't add up to playing the 3. Roscoe insists and well he moves on to greener pastures. So he thinks!

 

[art4life]

Roscoe's transfer still baffles me.
I'm guessing there is more to the story than we'll ever know.
He was one of my favorites.

 

[Walker11]

I'm not breaking any ground here when I say that Roscoe likely felt under appreciated, and rightfully so IMO.

 

[GemParty]

I remember being really Excited with his whole recruitment. I believe he was connected to HBarnes? decision, and took us instead of Duke. Now to read this, he should be wearing Husky blue.

 

[uchusky32]

I'm not breaking any ground here when I say that Roscoe likely felt under appreciated, and rightfully so IMO.

Are you Roscoe?

 

[Walker11]

Are you Roscoe?

I thought everyone would agree that benching Roscoe, who had been an integral part of our championship run, for DeAndre Daniels, who had played 0 minutes for Uconn, was a bad idea in retrospect. I think he was justifiably pissed and it hurt his confidence.

 

[caw]

I thought everyone would agree that benching Roscoe, who had been an integral part of our championship run, for DeAndre Daniels, who had played 0 minutes for Uconn, was a bad idea in retrospect. I think he was justifiably pissed and it hurt his confidence.

Calhoun has never gifted PT. Have to work in practice.

 

[Silk City]

As far as school goes, looks like Roscoe has a little more time left than he thought.

Sounds familiar.

 

[Husky68]

Calhoun has never gifted PT. Have to work in practice.

And by this are you saying that DD outworked RS in practice, and you know this how. Out played and out shot maybe, out worked just don't see Roscoe as a slacker. With the results DD presented last year vs. Roscoe would say poor coaching job to have playing time done as per last year with DD getting much early time until he proved without a doubt he just wasn't ready.
If coach couldn't figure out how to use RS last year (when he was really needed), I'm good with Roscoe figuring try something else.

 

[ConnHuskBask]

Roscoe's transfer still baffles me.
I'm guessing there is more to the story than we'll ever know.
He was one of my favorites.

Agree.
Agree.
Agree.

Wish Roscoe the best, but I really wish he stayed at UConn. He's the glue player that every championship team needs.

His game reminded me of Charles Oakley more than anyone else and Oak was one of my favorite all time Knicks.

 

[caw]

And by this are you saying that DD outworked RS in practice, and you know this how. Out played and out shot maybe, out worked just don't see Roscoe as a slacker. With the results DD presented last year vs. Roscoe would say poor coaching job to have playing time done as per last year with DD getting much early time until he proved without a doubt he just wasn't ready.
If coach couldn't figure out how to use RS last year (when he was really needed), I'm good with Roscoe figuring try something else.

I see and hear things.

Roscoe doesn't necessarily have to be a slacker to be outworked. There is also focused effort. I'll leave it at that.

Roscoe didn't want to play the four, it wasn't the coach not knowing how to use him. He could have been/could be a Oakley/Rodman type four, but I would bet money against him ever being a decent three.

 

[champs99and04]

I'm sick of hearing about how "disrespected" Roscoe and Oriakhi were at the begginning of the season. First of all, these two guys knew they were signing up to play for a stubborn Irish bastard when they signed their LOI's. Playing time is earned, regardless of who you are. Earning minutes didn't seem like much of a problem for Shabazz or Lamb, so I don't want to hear Oriakhi bi*ching about getting benched in favor of Tyler Olander, who was clearly playing better at the time. It's not like Roscoe and Oriakhi had a bad couple practices and were benched. They both started the first few games, and played like . That's on them, not Calhoun. Calhoun probably figured the benchings would like a spark under them, not provoke a twitter outlash and a display of pouting that rivals my 10-year-old sister. And although Deandre had a disappointing year, it's not like he was chopped liver. The kid was a top ten recruit per Rivals.com, and figured to be one of the better offensive players in the class. To his credit, Roscoe seemed to handle the benching relatively well, and earned those minutes back by the end of the season. Alex on the other hand, not so much, but I digress.

By the way, you know who else was benched last season in favor of a talented freshman? Darius Miller, Kentucky's senior leader who was a pillar in the Wildcats 2011 Final Four run. Instead of whining and attacking his coach on twitter like Oriakhi, he took it like a man, regrouped, and hit countless big shots throughout the year. This is what you want from your senior leader.

 

[mauconnfan]

+1000000 champs99and04.....

Thank you........and it will work out better in the long run I believe. Deandre is much more talented than Roscoe although he will need to get some strength to work the boards like Roscoe. Let's be honest here, it's not like he could shoot or pass the ball, but his work on the court as a defender and occasionally on the boards will need to be replaced. But this transfer does not hurt at all as a matter of fact it gives some people time to grow in a year which is almost like "practice."

 

[uchusky32]

I thought everyone would agree that benching Roscoe, who had been an integral part of our championship run, for DeAndre Daniels, who had played 0 minutes for Uconn, was a bad idea in retrospect. I think he was justifiably pissed and it hurt his confidence.

Here's the problem. Roscoe couldn't play the 3 long term for us. He couldn't dribble his shoot selection was poor. He was a gritty defender hustle guy ok rebounder. I'm not saying DD was the answer last year but we would have recruited a true 3 and still need to. Roscoe skill set is a PF who will need to work his butt off to defend the post or guard the other teams best person at the 2,3,4.

 

[UConnSwag11]

yeah it cant be about the ban, hes losing time either way but at least he would have gotten a lot more exposure playing at uconn and would have developed a lot more at uconn than unlv

 

[dapriest]

Calhoun has never gifted PT. Have to work in practice.

Yeah, but . . .
One of the following is almost certainly true:
1. JC benched RS early on to try to motivate him, even though DD's practice performance didn't warrant it.
2. JC benched RS early on because DD's practice performance, in JC's mind, warranted it.

If 1, then it's JC's blame because his motivation game backfired (just like it did with AO).
If 2, then it's JC's blame because he would then be a terrible, awful judge of game performance based on observing practice sessions. We all saw it - DD was flat out not good. Lost. Wooden. Awkward. No smooth. Liability on D. What was the decision? A year of RS proving himself in a BE and NC 11 game grind versus a month or two of DD in practice?

Should there not be any basic principle that, if it's close, it goes to the kid with the NC ring and not the kid who's been on campus 70 days?

What the hell was JC looking at? It's extremely hard for me to believe that DD was such a beast in practice that it warranted benching RS.

JC has message benched players many times over the years. If you think that JC hands out PT based solely on practice effort, then we disagree. Sure, that's a large part of it, it seems, but it's not the end all, and there are many examples. AO and RS were just the two most recent ones.

Long and the short of it - last year's complete disaster is all on JC, and nobody else.

For whatever reason, which we here in the Yard will certainly never know, JC made the decision to bench RS for an unproven guy who turned out to be a scrub putting up 3 points and 2 boards a game.
Smith had averaged 6 pts and 5 boards a game in 25 minutes his freshman year.

It's very hard to argue against JC's techniques, of course, because of the 3 NCs. But his techniques seem to result in feast or famine.

Last year we starved. Good thing we ate aplenty the year afore.

 

[mauconnfan]

"Basic principle"? Yeah go to practice, play hard, don't bitch about where you play and don't use the NC ring as your pacifier leading into the season.

You can't be very bright if you believe everything is on JC........is some of it? I'm sure....but not much at all. Kids have all summer to work on getting better, they have to facilities offered to them. And wow, 6 and 5 in 25 minutes? Think if Deandre got 25 minutes a game he could've thrown up those monster numbers? LOL

RS was so much better huh? He was an important piece of the NC no doubt then he returned still unable to shoot, dribble and pass any better and his attitude drifted, probably with assistance. That's not on JC....suddenly he's a crappy coach because he makes people earn minutes and if they mope around and don't take the demotion as incentive to do what it takes to get back.......he's been doing this a long time and pretty sure he's been fairly successful. Suddenly a bunch of quitters are on him? He'll have more fun coaching the kids this year no matter what the numbers are I promise. Feast or famine? Hell yeah but every recruit knows you need to come in ready to earn the minutes and it does not change with a NC. I'm sure he feels he failed AO and RS but in reality he did no such thing. They failed to get better, rested on their laurels obviously which were handed to them by Kemba and last years individual failures are on them period.

 

[EricLA]

Interesting discussion. At first I found myself agreeing with the people who felt Roscoe should have stayed, etc. and that playing Daniels over him wasn't the right decision. But as several other people said, none of us were at the practices and we have no idea what transpired that made JC choose to play DD over RS. I agree that DD didn't do much last year. And we could all "wish" that Roscoe got more PT, but that would also mean we need to wish he did better in practices.

I can't really question coach at this point, or his decisions, because we weren't there. Maybe Roscoe had a bit of a 'tude. Maybe a sense of entitlement. Or maybe JC saw more potential in DD. Or maybe DD just out performed RS in practices. Or maybe all or none or some combo, or there were other issues.

I'm bummed he's gone, as with Alex, but also I want guys who REALLY want to be at UCONN, and who want to work their asses off for a HOF coach and 3 time NCAA winner. I'm always bummed when a kid I like leaves, but so far, things have always ended up working out for UCONN as a whole...

 

[Husky68]

I see and hear things.

Roscoe doesn't necessarily have to be a slacker to be outworked. There is also focused effort. I'll leave it at that.

Roscoe didn't want to play the four, it wasn't the coach not knowing how to use him. He could have been/could be a Oakley/Rodman type four, but I would bet money against him ever being a decent three.

I know someone else who sees and hears things, spends lot of time on other planets.

 

[caw]

I know someone else who sees and hears things, spends lot of time on other planets.

Believe whatever you want, roscoes practice effort was not as good as Daniels. That's all I'll say. I trust the people I've talked to.

 

[Gurleyman]

I liked Roscoe, wish he stayed, and consider him an important part of our title. But at the same time, it is amazing to me that a guy can hold the #1 spot on ESPN's Not Top 10 for months due to a massive brain fart, and then do it again in an NCAA Tournament game. If you can't learn that lesson, how many other little lessons are you not learning? , if he had dribbled out the clock by mistake against Iowa State, at least he would have done something different.

In the bigger picture, when you have a hustling, scrappy "glue guy" type of player, it's a great asset. If that guy starts to fancy himself a playmaker who can create his own offense, he's less of an asset, which seemed to happen too often when he got the ball. That was largely due to the fact that he was a top 40 recruit who I'm sure always thought he was a go-to type of player. I don't really think Roscoe left a better player than when he came in - some of that is due to losing minutes, but it isn't like everyone didn't get the chance at one point or another. At a certain point, step up and show me you need to be on the floor.

Daniels started out the season playing pretty well, but lost confidence in his shot and became ineffective, due to his lack of other skills (not a ballhandler, not strong on the boards). Had he just kept knocking down the corner three and nothing else, we'd have been a lot better. He needs to get confidence back to make an impact.

I know this post makes it seems like I didn't like Roscoe, but I did. I tended to give him slack on his mistakes, since he wasn't cheating us on effort on the boards and on D. From JC's perspective, he may have been trying to coach Roscoe a certain way in practice, and Roscoe kept playing like the player he thought he was, with an inflated vision of his own skillset. Sort of like when Willie Mays Hays pictured himself a power hitter and kept flying out to the warning track, to the chagrin of the gruff old-school manager. Except that's a different sport (and fictional). Roscoe's not a bad kid - it's a hard thing to check your ego that much and settle on being a role player when you've probably always thought - and been told - you'll be an NBA player for sure.

Sent from my BlackBerry 9930 using Tapatalk

 

[UCweCONN]

Believe whatever you want, roscoes practice effort was not as good as Daniels. That's all I'll say. I trust the people I've talked to.

"We not talkin' about a game, we talkin' about practice. Practice. Practice? Practice?"

 

[uconnfan68]

"We not talkin' about a game, we talkin' about practice. Practice. Practice? Practice?"

They all knew that coming in here. It's never been a secret on how you earn favor with JC. I still think Roscoe was jerked off a few times. At some point you have to try to win games, with the players you have, not the ones that practice best.

 

[mauconnfan]

They all knew that coming in here. It's never been a secret on how you earn favor with JC. I still think Roscoe was jerked off a few times. At some point you have to try to win games, with the players you have, not the ones that practice best.

I doubt it was a matter only of who was practicing "best"..........I'm thinking "hardest" is what caw is speaking of. Sulking and not bringing it deserves nothing. And again, he played when he started playing better. Roscoe, who was already limited offensively, was doing very little to earn time with his defensive and rebounding efforts either for the first 3rd of the season if you remember correctly......

Ultimately it was he who "jerked himself off" regarding playing time!